Ever since the 2003 publication of Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball,” the best seller about the Oakland A’s and their stats-oriented approach to roster-building, many in our industries have been looking for similar metrics to predict the success of a song. In his just-published “FutureHit.DNA,” CMT Senior VP of music strategy Jay Frank offers fifteen different traits that he thinks will define the hit songs of the future.

Among Frank’s suggestions: a change in the way song intros are structured. In the past, a listener who stumbled upon, say, Adam Ant’s “Goody Two Shoes” on the radio would have had ample likelihood of coming across the oft-repeated “don’t drink/don’t smoke/what do you do” hook, despite a long intro that went through several different changes and didn’t reflect the rest of the song. In an era of individually streamed songs and iPod skip buttons, Frank says, songs don’t have that luxury. And the current success of Cobra Starship’s “Good Girls Go Bad,” Iyaz’s “Replay,” and Jason DeRulo’s “Whatcha Say” suggests that producers and labels are already thinking along those lines. More Information on “FutureHit.DNA” is available here.

In “FM on the iPhone: The Story Is Not Yet Told,” Triton Digital Media VP of Strategy Jim Kerr kicks off Radio-Info.com’s New Media section by suggesting the potential introduction of an FM tuner on the iPhone might end up being more multi-platform in nature than FM broadcasters would like, somehow putting local stations in the same directory as out-of-town stations and Internet only streams. In doing so, local FM radio’s advantage would be further diminished.

Even if FM never makes it to the iPhone, the issue of “who controls the directory” is one that we’ve been raising for more than a year. Often the job of curating streaming audio choices is falling to third parties. Some of them, like Radiotime, are friendly to the mission of mainstream commercial radio; others are already far more likely to default to Internet-only exotica. Even more than last summer, as the Internet continues making its way to the dashboard, one wonders if the sort of industry-wide effort that has gone into HD Radio would be better spent on making sure its stations are represented among an endless array of choices.

Kerr’s piece is the first in a weekly series, “The Future Is Now,” to appear in Radio-Info.com’s New Media section. In the weeks to come, he’ll be joined by more regular guest columnists who are thought leaders in social media, podcasting, new technology, mobile media, and radio on all its platforms.

First Listen
Pittsburgh’s 101 The Blaze

With the demise of WAMO-FM Pittsburgh, it was inevitable that somebody would make a run at that market’s disenfranchised R&B/Hip-Hop listeners online. As it turned out, the new 101theBlaze.com is the work of Ron Atkins, former group PD for WAMO owner Sheridan Broadcasting and an R&B radio veteran. Atkins has also launched an Urban AC station, RadioMagicPittsburgh.com. The Blaze is heavily recurrent now, but Atkins is planning to open up the music and would like to hear from label people here. Here’s a First Listen to the Blaze just before 10 a.m. Monday (26):

• Destiny’s Child, “Soldier”
• Lee Carr, “Stiletto”
• Chris Brown, “Run It”
• Pretty Ricky, “Tipsy In This Club”
• Juvenile, “Rodeo”
• Ne-Yo, “So Sick”
• Mike Jones, “Cuddy Buddy”
• Chamillionaire, “Turn It Up”
• Melanie Fiona, “Give It To Me Right”

When Classical standard-bearer WQXR New York made its recent ownership and frequency change to 105.9, it did so with a number of key voices from the commercial WQXR on 96.3 FM. This week in Radio-Info.com’s new Programming and Music section, broadcaster-turned-newspaper publisher and ROR reader Ted Fleischaker does his First Listen to the new WQXR and contends that the new voices aren’t enough to keep the new station from being “just, well, another public station, no matter how good.” (Fleischaker is, incidentally, a one-time public broadcaster.)

In his full piece, available here, Fleischaker contends that ‘QXR should have remained commercial, along the lines of WFMT Chicago, and kept more of the positioning and New York Times-related features of the old station. Musically, he says, “They have gone from movements and very upbeat (William Tell, the finale from Beethoven’s 5th, etc.), especially in drive-time, to the NPR educational style of mostly full works”—a change that a lot of Classical purists would probably hail.

WCLV Cleveland president Robert Conrad noticed many of the same changes, but has a more charitable take. “I thought that the WNYC people were very gracious in their comments about the history of the station and the Times’ stewardship.” Since then, he says, “With the old ‘QXR voices on the new ‘QXR, the flavor of the station continues. They do seem to be a little more adventurous in the music they play. And, of course, ‘NYC is bringing in a number of public radio classical shows—‘Symphonycast,’ ‘Pipe Dreams,’ ‘From The Top’ that the old ‘QXR didn’t carry. I do miss the New York Times news and Times features.”

KDFC San Francisco OM Bill Leuth raises the question of whether a non-comm Classical outlet’s mission is still to be more adventurous in a market where commercial Classical no longer exists. “WQXR released a statement about programming serious music, that they would play Bach not Telmann, implying Bach is better. I think Michael Jackson is a more important artist than Bell BivDevoe, but if I was doing an ‘80s/’90s Urban station, and the audience liked both, I would play both . .  . That said, I think WQXR’s playlists have already evolved since the recent launch, and are adjusting closer to the middle of Classical tastes, a move I applaud for the sake of the format . . . WQXR has a great staff of devoted personnel, and I wish them the best as they gain local support for their efforts, and gain audience in a great city.”

Chattanooga, Tenn., is one of those medium markets where Mainstream Top 40 hasn’t always been able to get a foothold over the years. Now it has two CHRs as Bahakel’s WDOD (96.5 the Mountain) gets new competition from Clear Channel’s returning WKXJ (103.7 Kiss FM). Until recently, WDOD wasn’t streaming. But this week in Radio-Info.com’s new Top 40 section, Chattanooga becomes the site of our second Punch War – pitting the two stations song-for-song against each other. It’s the ultimate programming junkie’s exercise. You can also see our first punch war, Houston’s KRBE vs. KKHH (Hot 95.7) here.

One of the most interesting record stories of the year has been the success of Katy Perry’s “Hot N Cold” at Mainstream AC, nearly a year after its peak at Mainstream CHR. In one way, that’s not surprising. The entire history of Mainstream AC is built on a shifting musical landscape on which once-edgy songs finally become comfortable to an AC target audience. But with CHR making its biggest 25-plus inroads in years and a growing mother/daughter coalition, does a song like “Hot N Cold” really need a year to become mom-friendly? Or is the lag time merely a function of the way that Mainstream AC stations find their new music? Some thoughts on that topic are here.

Have a great week. And look for more Ross On Radio on Thursday.

Sean Ross is Executive Editor of Music and Programming for Radio-Info.com. He is also a consultant to the radio and music industries, and VP of music and programming for Edison Research. He can be reached at 973.763.1306.